Author: Lawrence Watt-Evans

The Unwelcome Warlock: Progress Report Forty-Seven

Things are not moving as quickly as I would like.

The trade edition of The Unwelcome Warlock is now scheduled for April 2012. The e-book should be out somewhat sooner.

The advance edition for donors — well, I don’t have a date (it won’t be in October), but it should be well before April. I’m sorry it’s taking so long. Wildside’s move to a new office seems to have thrown their entire schedule back about two to three months.

In other Ethshar news, Tales of Ethshar is under contract but not scheduled. Wildside and I have a verbal agreement for Ithanalin’s Restoration, but no contract as yet. And while I still have no definite plans for another serial, I was doing some plotting work on The Sorcerer’s Widow earlier today. (Azraya of Ethshar and Ishta’s Playmate are also candidates for serialization, if I decide I don’t want to do Widow next.)

Incidentally, my post office box is going away next month — it’s gotten so little use over the past year that I can’t justify the annual fee anymore. I’ll be making other arrangements for streetmail.

I’ll try to keep you posted on any developments.

The Unwelcome Warlock: Progress Report Forty-Six

The astute donor will have noticed that the Wildside first paper edition of The Unwelcome Warlock did not ship in September. I’m afraid I don’t know when it will ship — Wildside moved offices recently, which disrupted their schedule much more than they had anticipated, so last I heard, a couple of weeks ago, they didn’t have cover art ready and the novel hadn’t been typeset. We’re still hoping for October, but I can’t guarantee it’ll happen.

I’ll keep you posted. Newsletter subscribers will generally get the news first, but I’ll post anything important here as well.

In other Ethshar news, Tales of Ethshar, collecting all the short Ethshar stories, is complete and under contract to Wildside, but not yet scheduled. Wildside is also planning a new edition of Ithanalin’s Restoration, including an ebook version — we have a verbal agreement, no contracts yet.

I do not have any new serials or other new Ethshar stories in the works at this time.

One-Eyed Jack: Progress Report One

You know, after giving it some thought, I decided there just wasn’t any real point in serializing One-Eyed Jack. So I’ve published it.

The trade paperback edition is $14.98.

The Kindle edition is $5.99.

The NookBook (ePub) edition is also $5.99.

So far those are the only sources, but the trade paperback edition should be available from Amazon soon, and I believe it can be special ordered by traditional outlets — the ISBN is 9781466291539. (It’s possible it isn’t available to them yet, but, as with Amazon, it should be soon.)

I have not yet made the e-book available anywhere else, but if there’s interest I can put it on Smashwords, whence it will go to Apple, Sony, Kobo, and Diesel. If anyone has a problem with CreateSpace I’m perfectly willing to do a Lulu edition, but as yet I haven’t bothered.

I’m eager to see how this goes, and to see what readers think of the story. If it does well, I have two sequels, Suicide King and Queen of Hearts, plotted.

So check it out, and let me know what you think.

One-Eyed Jack: Progress Report Zero

A couple of years back I was advised that traditional fantasy wasn’t selling as well as it used to, and the hot trend was urban fantasy. Well, I’ve always liked urban fantasy, so I decided to give it a shot. The result was a dark urban fantasy called One-Eyed Jack, first in what I intended as a series about a guy named Gregory Kraft who’s been cursed — literally — with psychic powers he can’t control and doesn’t really understand.

I finished it some time ago, and my agent’s been trying to find it a suitable home. A couple of publishers are interested, but frankly, I’m not thrilled with the terms they’re offering, and as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’ve wanted to experiment with self-publishing. So a couple of days ago I asked my agent to pull it off the market; I’ll be publishing it myself, under the Misenchanted Press imprint.

I’m still working out the details, though. For one thing, should I serialize it? I’m thinking I should, just as advertising. The whole thing’s written, so I don’t need encouragement to finish it, but I’ll be interested in reader reaction, and feedback from a serial may result in some tweaking and editing.

I will not be promising donors a copy of the finished paper edition, though. I’m not sure whether I’ll have a minimum amount required before I post a new chapter. I will let people donate money either because they feel like it, or to advance order the e-book edition, but it won’t take $25; I think $10 should cover it. (I won’t just send them the e-book immediately because (a) I won’t have the cover ready right away, and (b) there’s that tweaking and editing I mentioned.) The eventual list price for the e-book will be less than that, but your $10 means you’ll be one of the first to get it.

So right now I’m looking for feedback — serialize it, or don’t bother? If serialized, how often should new chapters be posted? Since it’s all written, there’s no need for weekly spacing; I could do two or three chapters a week. Heck, I could make it daily. There are twenty-seven chapters and an epilogue. Should I require a certain amount of money before posting a new chapter, or just assume that sales of the finished book will cover everything?

Should I, perhaps, not post the last few chapters, no matter what?

Talk to me, folks.

Thanks.

The Unwelcome Warlock: Progress Report Forty-Five

Latest word from Wildside is that a limited run of The Unwelcome Warlock should be out in September or October, so that copies can be sent to donors, but the regular edition is being pushed back to allow time for a new distribution deal. The new target date for the generally-available edition is February.

Cover price will probably be under $15, despite the novel’s length — ebooks have put some serious downward pressure on book prices — so I’m thinking of including a chapbook of “The Frog Wizard” with each donor copy.

Never heard of “The Frog Wizard”? Or if you did read it and remember it, you don’t see what it has to do with Ethshar? Well, that’s because I originally wrote no fewer than six variants of the same story, and only one of the six is an Ethshar story. One of the non-Ethshar versions was published in the January 1993 issue of Science Fiction Age, but the Ethshar version has never been published before.

This does not mean, however, that only donors to the serial of The Unwelcome Warlock will see it. It’s included in an upcoming collection of short Ethshar stories. Wildside has sent a contract for this collection; we’re fine-tuning the contract, but it should be signed soon. The collection will include all the short Ethshar stories — well, unless I forgot any; I only remembered to include “The Frog Wizard” at the last minute. Chapter One of The Unwanted Wardrobe will be there, with a few notes on some of the references.

And here’s where I’d like some feedback. I submitted the book as Tales of Ethshar, but Wildside accidentally sent the contract for The Book of Ethshar — which is a pretty good title. Now we’re trying to decide which title to use. Got an opinion?

The Unwelcome Warlock: Progress Report Forty-Four

Publication of The Unwelcome Warlock is tentatively scheduled for September. Wildside is moving offices, though, and running into unexpected difficulties, so I would not be at all surprised to see it delayed until October or even November.

Still no word on cover art.

Incidentally, Chapter One will also be included as “The Warlock’s Refuge” in Tales of Ethshar, the eleven-story collection that Wildside has just accepted. (Contracts are reportedly in the works.)

No firm plans yet on future serials or further Ethshar stories.

Planning for the Future

Okay, Ethshar and serial fans, I’m thinking about what I want to do about future projects.

The fact is, regular advances have been dropping as paperback sales nosedive, and the big publishers have become far harder to sell to if you aren’t a young woman writing about vampires. Small presses, on the other hand, have been cashing in on the rise of ebooks — in many cases, more effectively than the traditional big houses — and have more money available than ever before. Self-publishing is also more viable now than at any time in the past century, thanks to ebooks.

So I’m planning to switch more of my output (possibly all of it) to non-traditional routes — the difference in money is no longer the overwhelming thing it used to be. I’ll be writing more Ethshar novels and other stuff I want to write, regardless of whether anyone in New York thinks it’s commercially viable.

But do I want to do these as serials-followed-by-small-press, or should I just write ’em and send them straight to Wildside and/or FoxAcre without bothering to serialize them? Or should I self-publish?

Do you guys like the serial format, or just consider it a necessary evil to get the stories you want to read?

As for small press vs. self-publishing, I’m not sure any of you guys care; the big difference there is whether I want to do all my own editing and formatting and marketing, or let a publisher take a huge slice of the money in exchange for taking all that work off my hands. A small press means there will be a hardcopy edition, probably cheaper than if I self-publish one, but the ebooks will be about the same. If anyone has advice on the subject, though, I’d like to see it.

Another question: Are you guys only interested in Ethshar, or would you be willing to pay for other stuff, too? Not sequels to twenty-year-old science fiction; I’ve learned my lesson there. But I have several other projects I’d like to write — The Dragon’s Price, for example, which is a big ol’ fantasy novel I wrote fifty pages of and then put aside as Not What Tor Wanted. Or more of the Bound Lands series that started with A Young Man Without Magic and Above His Proper Station — I had a dozen plotted, and more than a hundred pages of On A Field Sable written, when Tor dropped the series.

I’m considering maybe putting those on Kickstarter, and writing them if they attract enough pledged support.

Oh, incidentally, watch for several small-press reprint projects coming up — Wildside and I are discussing Tales of Ethshar, collecting all the short Ethshar stories (including the first chapter of The Unwanted Wardrobe), and a bunch of mini-collections of my short fiction are in the works. We’re also discussing reprinting assorted novels that aren’t currently in print.

So — here’s your chance to tell me what you want to see from me, and in what form. Talk to me.

The Unwelcome Warlock: Progress Report Forty-Two

I finished the final draft last night, and sent it off to Wildside Press; they acknowledged receipt this morning. I’ve received the promised advance. Everything’s pretty much on track. I don’t have a publication date yet; from here on, the scheduling is entirely up to Wildside. No idea what they’ll do for cover art, or what the list price will be, or any of that other stuff.

I’ve got at least two other projects I want to deal with before I even think about another Ethshar serial.

Thanks to everyone who contributed, and I hope you feel you got your money’s worth.